Sal's Runescape Newspaper

Sal's Runescape newspaper is back! Yay!

You can download it here. It's a PDF file, which is not very convenient - I'd prefer to see it published in HTML format. There are also some small issues with the newspaper page layouts, but the content is very good! Interviews are interesting (and one of them is with silentc0re :)), and I also liked Emanick's article about the Wilderness a lot. All in all, very good read.

Interviews with Runescape Fan Sites: Sal's Realm

Today's interview is with Salmoneus, founder, owner and developer of Sal's Realm of Runescape. I bet most of you already know who he is, though :)

Of course, this interview is special to me. About half year ago Runewise and Sal's became very close partners and Runewise's forum moved to Sal's. It was a huge step for Runewise and I am glad to say that I never regretted making it. I am grateful to Salmoneus and Sal's community for embracing and accepting Runewise. And I hope that folks from Sal's found something useful and fun amongst Runewise's tools too :)

Enjoy the interview!

Q: How would you describe your site in a few words?
A: Sal’s Realm is a friendly, supportive, community-oriented fansite with guides and tools for players of all levels and interests in RuneScape.

Q: Can you tell us about major milestones of your site? A little bit of a history?
A: Sal’s Realm was founded back in September 2002, about a year and a half after I started playing RuneScape. Back then, my site was not all that popular; likely due to the lack of a complete set of skill and quest guides, as well as a very low-quality layout. In early 2004 I purchased the salmoneus.net domain and redesigned the site, and it began to build in popularity. In November 2004, our community discussion forums were opened, and I think the site really began to take off at that point. We started accepting user content submissions through the forum, and our site continued to grow at a fast pace.
In mid-2005 I wrote the first skill calculators for our site, which were coded in HTML and JavaScript. In mid-2006, our Item Database was released to the public. Shortly after that, I rewrote our skill calculators in Java, and included a highscore-lookup feature. I think these things were pretty important in the development of our site, and acted as a supplement to our guides, thus attracting new players to our site.
As of recently, there has not been much activity on our site; mainly because I’m working on our next major milestone: an updated version of our site, complete with revamped tools and a snazzy site layout.

Q: What inspired you to start a Runescape fan site?
A: Quite simply, I loved (and still love) RuneScape. I always enjoyed playing RuneScape, adventuring around the various areas in the game, completing quests and training skills. It just had that “new” feeling to it. But there wasn’t a whole lot of information about playing the game on the official site, which I think was a pretty big issue early-on in the game’s life. For example, the Cooking skill. There were no real instructions on making all those neat foods we now enjoy on a regular basis (pies, cakes, pizzas). Many people just ate things that were lying around: Cabbage and meat. It was a bland diet! Another example includes quest items: people would be tricked into paying crazy amounts of money to obtain a quest item which was freely available in-game. I created my site to help solve those problems and give all players a chance to unlock those “mysteries” of the game.

Q: What were your original goals for the site?
A: My website started out as a hobby site – something to do in my spare time. I always imagined having a complete set of skill and quest guides, and a handful of miscellaneous “tip” guides. I really didn’t expect it to become all that popular (although I hoped it would!). I guess my initial goal was to simply create a fansite with accurate information on skills and quests, and help as many people as I could.

Q: Had your goals changed over time? If yes, how and why?
A: They have definitely changed. More accurately, they’ve expanded from simply wanting to include guides on skills and quests, to including guides on just about all topics of RuneScape. Not only are guides an important part (and goal) of the site, but various tools such as calculators and databases go hand-in-hand with making the site as useful as possible, and are thus another goal of ours. One goal has remained constant in the last 7-or-so years: we still want to assist as many players as possible.

Q: Was it the first web site you ever created?
A: Yes, Sal’s Realm was my first-ever website.

Q: What technologies were used to create the site? Did you add new technologies into the mix after you created the original version?
A: The first version of the site was actually built primarily using the Freewebs site editor. I had no real HTML experience before that, and it seemed like the easiest way to get my site online. When I redesigned the site in 2004, I simply used HTML and CSS. There was no real dynamic content on the site at that point. As time went on, I added a Perl submission script so that players could submit questions, tips and suggestions to our site. That has since been replaced with a PHP script. I added some JavaScript content here and there to make the site a bit easier to use, and of course, our first calculators were created in JavaScript. Our second set of calculators was created in Java. Our Item Database is also coded in PHP and uses MySQL for a storage backend.

Q: Is there a unique feature/service your site provides to Runescape players?
A: I think our community itself is a pretty unique one. We have a lot of great members and a fantastic staff, and many of our users are more than happy to assist anyone with anything RuneScape-related; you just need to ask! Our guides are also written and proofread by community members, which gives them that “special touch” and uniqueness you can’t find anywhere else. As for site features, we don’t have all that much unique stuff in terms of tools and services right now. However, there is a lot going on with the big site overhaul we have planned, and we think our users will be surprised to see all the neat stuff we’ve cooked up!

Q: Which feature/service took the most time and effort to create?
A: The Item Database, hands-down. The programming behind it is not all that complex, but the content itself is still a work in progress, simply because item data is always changing, and items are always being added to the game.

Q: Which feature/service was the most complex from the programming stand point?
A: The Java skill calculators are probably the most complex project we have on our site at the moment, mainly because of the effort that went into making them compact, and efficient.
If we include projects that have not yet made their way onto the site, I’d have to say that our site overhaul project is by far the most complex of all our projects. It’s taken a lot of work to integrate our content, layout and tools into our new system, and has essentially required a huge rewrite of much of the code throughout our site.

Q: Is there a feature/service of the site you are most proud of?
A: I’m very proud of our discussion forum and how far it has come since we opened it six years ago. Our members are very supportive and our moderators are always helpful and friendly. The fact that we’ve been able to build a successful, active community is a milestone in itself! Our members are what keep our site alive, and I’m proud that we’ve been successful in this area.

Q: Did you start the site alone or with friends?
A: I started the site alone, as a pastime. None of my close friends were really interested in RuneScape, and being as paranoid as I am, I thought it would be safer to get the site started on my own. Our forum was actually started by a RuneScape friend, 1800151100, and me. As time went on and the forum became popular we brought in members to become part of our staff.

Q: Are you the only developer of the site’s code?
A: For the most part, I develop most of the site’s code, simply because it’s difficult to keep multiple developers “synchronized” when a change is made. Neo Avatars, an administrator on our forum, has also contributed quite a bit to the development of our Java calculators, as well as our interactive world maps. He has also contributed to several parts of our big site overhaul, including one large project that is currently in development.

Q: How much time do you normally spend supporting the site? A few hours a day? A few hours a month?
A: I have been spending a considerable amount of time working on the site overhaul – easily 6 hours a day or more – trying to get it released reasonably soon. Time also goes into adding new content to the current site. And finally, some time also goes into regular server maintenance, including software upgrades, patches, optimization, and dealing with those little technical “hiccups” that occur every now and then.

Q: What is the most difficult/challenging task you have to do to maintain the site?
A: Without a doubt, the most difficult task I have is trying to keep the current site updated alongside the site overhaul version of the site. Because both version of each guide are formatted differently, it takes quite a bit of time to update both copies.

Q: How many staff members do you have? How did you find/chose them?
A: We currently have seven active community staff members. Every staff member is chosen by the current staff members based on their behavior on the forums.

Q: Are there aspects of web site management you were able to completely delegate to others?
A: For the most part, I’m not all that active on the community/forum management side of things. I mostly take care of the technical stuff on the forum: upgrades, modifications, databases, templating – just about everything having to do with coding. I do try to help with as much administration as I can, but our staff seems to be on top of it most of the time. I’m generally working on the main site, adding/updating content, or cooking up a new project of some sort.

Q: Did you ever have to deal with hostility and/or attacks from other fan sites?
A: There have been incidents in the past where content and/or images were plagiarized by a member of another fansite; usually fansite owners will take action against the member and have the content removed quickly (which is great!). Of course, there have been various attacks over the years by groups of disgruntled members who have formed their own communities, and attack attempts by “underground” communities.

Q: Did you ever consider making money with the site or is it just a hobby?
A: When the site began I honestly did not want anything to do with advertisements – I despise them. For awhile I was able to run the site on donations by members. However, as popularity grew and we began getting more traffic, the donations were not able to cover site costs, especially after we outgrew shared/VPS hosting and had to move on to a dedicated server. Advertisements are a necessary evil to keep our site running.

Q: What do you think about the current Jagex’s fan sites support program? Do they do too much, too little? Is there something you’d wish would go differently?
A: I definitely think they’ve taken a step in the right direction by supporting fansites. Before they began supporting us, it seemed like Jagex was working against us, trying to draw players away from fansites. But they really have done a lot since then by offering interviews, artwork and various aspects of fansite support. I think they’re also very open to ways they can support us, and they have encouraged fansites to let them know if there’s something they can do to help us out.
There have been suggestions made to fansite support about ways to help fansites on the technical side of things (for example, making game data more accessible for use in our own projects), but the implementation of many of those suggestions are slow (if they are even happening). But it’s also important to note that while Jagex is willing to support fansites and take suggestions on new ways to help, their developers are pretty busy developing for the game, which most likely supersedes fansite support.

Q: Do you still play Runescape? If yes, how often?
A: Unfortunately, I’m no longer active in RuneScape anymore. I log on now and then to check out game updates, participate in one of our fansite events, or to manage our Clan Chat, but other than that I’m rarely online.

Q: What’s you Runescape goals, if any?
A: My goal is to begin playing again in 2011!

Q: What kind of Runescape player are you? Which Runescape aspect is most appealing to you: quests, role-playing, skilling, pking, minigames etc.?
A: I always enjoyed working my way through quests, as well as training Mining and Smithing. The only thing I dislike is PKing.

Q: Are there other Runescape fan sites you personally use as a Runescape player?
A: Because I’ve been inactive in RuneScape for ages, I really haven’t used any other fansites. When I did play, I used Tip.it’s TT coordinate locater, though.

Q: Do you follow/read Runescape blogs and news papers from other sites?
A: Every so often a link to an article or entry will catch my eye and I’ll read it, but I don’t regularly follow any RuneScape blogs or newspapers.

Q: Is there something you don't mind revealing about your RL (age, country, hobbies etc.)?
A: I’m 23 years old and live in Massachusetts, United States. I enjoy programming and web development (primarily in PHP and Java), reading, listening to music (dance, techno, trance, electronic and rock are my favorites), going out to eat, hanging out with friends, and fixing computers. I also love “nacho cheese” flavored Doritos, twisty Mac & Cheese, and Dunkin’ Donuts coffee.


Thank you very much, Salmoneus!

Canting Away Winter Festival and Clan Wars

This year I was able to attend more events from the festival's 24 hours marathon than ever before. And it was fun! Truly the best part of my year in Runescape!

Somehow we ended up being in the wilderness a lot :) I guess, unconsciously, saying good-bye to it, before the "old wildy" is back. I doubt we'll have any events in the wilderness next year... So, yeah, both opening and closing parades ended up in deep wilderness (in F2P) and ended by encountering a revenant knight (with a number of deaths accompanying those encounters). The first parade was truly suicidal and crazy. Everybody had their best and fanciest gear/costume on with a number of rares and non-replaceable/very expensive items - all that in F2P where revenants are especially deadly. Add "no food" clause to it and you'll get perfect conditions for yet a few more Santa hats and Halloween masks leaving Gielinor for good.
Then there was a number of KBD trips (including a suicidal one without armor where we managed to kick KBD to death once :)), hide and seek, and, of course, an epic clan wars match between Canting Away and Sals. Merch's full report is here, but I do want to add that I actually thought Canting Away had a very good chance to win (and we did!). I mean, even a "non-pking" clan (such as Canting Away) with a few leaders who knows what to do and members being disciplined about following leader's instructions would win a battle against an unorganized horde pretty much 10 out of 10. Plus Canting Away is no longer "a baby cc that lives in Sals blogs". I mean, it does live in Sals blogs (at least a big part of it), but it's not a baby anymore.

Thank you very much, dear "canters"! It was a great festival. I love you all.

Reflections

More than a week has passed since the merge with Sal's. I am actually very happy how it turned out - people at Sal's sincerely welcomed Runewise and gave a lot of great feedback and suggestions. I ended up adding a new service, fixing two broken ones (which I wasn't even aware about) and adding tons of new content. Runewise is still being viewed as somewhat separate entity, which is understandable, yet I hope the perception will change over time. I for once, plan to become more active in non-Runewise forums at Sal's and get to know more people - currently I am mostly reading blogs.

However, despite an overwhelming positive reception, it wasn't unanimous. Not unexpectedly, taking in account the size of the community, but there were people who voiced their disapproval with the merge. I don't really know what to do about that, I think I'll just do nothing. Can't please everybody after all. But I want to list their objections here, because they are symptomatic not just for fan sites, but for the outside world as well. I truly hope more and more people will eventually learn not to think in such way... Se here we go:

1. "I am loyal to this fan site, which means I am automatically hostile to every other fan site." That's called patriotism, I guess, in the worst sense of this ugly concept.

2. "Friend of my enemy got to be an enemy too."
Politics? I believe, that's exactly how it works.

3. "We should only deal with this guy, if we get out of the deal more than he does."
And this is just bad business.

That's all. End of the reflections, or was it a rant after all?..

Partnership between Sal's and Runewise

Today is a big day for me. And a major step for Runewise.

Partnership between Sal's and Runewise is now official. Actually it is a partial merge. While the sites remain independently hosted and maintained, Runewise forum has moved to Sal's, so there will be ONE community behind both sites.

I am very excited about all this. I've been struggling to keep Runewise tips and other content up to date. Now, backed by a huge and friendly Sal's community, I hope to solve this problem. From the other side Sal's members will be able to take advantage of Runewise services (which are useful!). Finally, for me personally, it is a great stimuli to keep working on the site.

A few links about the event:

• Announcement at Sal's is here.
• New Runewise forum is here.

Update on the fight against the cheating RS Blog

It might be the last post in this series.

The initiative definitely had an impact (which shows a power of the RS blogger community), though, not the one I hoped for. In fact, I might be loosing some illusions regarding one of the major RS fan sites I used to respect a lot. But I am not going to dig into my suspicions, who knows, I might be totally wrong there. I'll just list the fact and dates and you decide for yourself.

June 6: I bumped into Runescape Powerleveling Blog and realized that they steal guides from Sal's.
June 6: I wrote a personal note to Salmoneus, but didn't receive any replies (which is quite normal when you try to write to one of the major RS sites owners out of the blue).
June 8: Starting the campaign against the cheating blog. My first post about the issue: Lets try to close one of the cheating Runescape Blogs. A lot of people participated.
June 14: I got a response from Google (Blogspot team) saying that only the actual owner of the stolen content (meaning Sal's) can file a DMCA complain against the offender in order for Google to close that blog.
June 15: My second post about the issue: Update on the fight against the cheating RS Blog
June 15: The cheating blog added the following disclaimer at the bottom of their pages:
This website and its contents are Copyright 2008 Sal's Realm of RuneScape.All Rights Reserved.
June 16: I posted on Sal's feedback forum about the issue and about the cheating blog using Sal's copyright message.
June 17: My post was deleted from the forum without any explanations by Sal's administration.
June 17: My third post about the issue: Update on the fight against the cheating RS Blog
June 23: The following message (with a proper link) appeared at the top of every guide in the Runescape Powerleveling Blog:
Article From runescape.salmoneus.net
June 24: Runewise was successfully hacked for the first time in 1.5 years of service (which may be a pure coincidence, of course).
July 4: I am writing this post, cheating blog is alive, Sal's gets visitors from that blog. The order is restored, isn't it?

Update on the fight against the cheating RS Blog

I don't know what to think now. I posted about the situation with the cheating blog on Sal's site feedback forum. The post stayed there for about half a day with a few responses and then got quietly deleted. Not closed or edited, but deleted along with responses. I wasn't banned, warned or got any kind of notification. Like nothing happened. Does it mean Sal's actually gave permission to the cheating blog to re-publish content? Or does it mean they don't care or just don't want a hustle? Or there are other motives I have no idea about?

Who knows...
The only thing that clear is that they don't want to talk about it.

Runescape is a game, not a workplace!

Sal's April's Newspaper is out! As usual an excellent article from Merch Gwyar is in there.

"Runescape is a game. It is there for enjoyment. It is a computerised demonstration of a lot of people at play. Its position in the world is alongside sports played for pleasure, watching television, going to the cinema, registering for pub quizzes and reading a book. However, the attitude most often applied to it is more akin to the workplace."

How very true!

P.S. And, thank you, Sal's Newspaper staff, for adding anchors to the newspaper pages. I really appreciate it :-)

Interview with Yogosun

Short interview with Yogosun on Sal's.

When the Predator Looms

New issue of Sal's newspaper is out. Take a look at the "When the Predator Looms" article by Merch Gwyar there (the last article on the page). It is indeed a serious issue, please, be aware about it and play safe.

What do we fear in Runescape?

Excellent article in the recent Sal's newspaper by Merch Gwyar. Scroll down to the "Fear And Loathing in Lumbridge" part of the page. Finally, I see a justice paid to the Haunted Mine quest (Yes, I was one of the victims and died there). I would also mention Darkness of Hallowvale quest there - it is so dark and depressing.

P.S. To readers from Sal's. If you know some of Sal's mods or newspaper mods, could you, please, ask them to take a look at the issue I raised here about the newspaper? It is really really inconvenient to link individual articles from Sal's newspaper... Thanks!

The Society of Runescape

Interesting view on how we, as players, create our own Runescape world around us. Look at the first article on the Sal's newspaper by Merch Gwyar. I 100% agree with the author, good deeds may go unnoticed, but essentially you are what you do.

Why people do Quests?

Nicely written and heart lightening article from Sal's newspaper. Also just in time for my newly obtained Quest cape :-)

Survival in Wilderness (#2)

Another guide about survival in Wilderness. This time from Sal's. The guide is very informative, but two things I found there made me uneasy:
1. Advice to use low level scout accounts. I just never thought about it. Yeah, it kind of make sense, but isn't it against the rules to multi-account like that? Also it does not sound ethical to me...
2. Advice to bring a rune scimitar with you when mining rune ore. Nothing wrong with the advice. But the given reason is 'This is not to attack Pkers, but instead to attempt to kill any Rune miners that are of a lower level. Picking up the occasional inventory of Rune is always a welcome surprise'. How hypocritical is that, huh?
Anyway, a rood read, some interesting ideas, tips and routes.